AP / IB or something in between - more than you ever wanted to know...

In the last two years there has been much discussion in Grosse Pointe regarding the International Baccalaureate program, and its viability as a curriculum in Grosse Pointe. This blog included a survey over the past week that clearly shows respondents have a serious interest in IB. We have done significant research at the high school level on IB and its merits over the past year, and have come to some conclusions regarding the program and a possible recommendation to our school board. Much of the discussion at the board level has had to do with whether we could run Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses at the same time. After review, the high school administrations do not see that as a wise alternative. We have concluded however, that there are many elements of IB that are better than AP in preparing students for today's world.

At the crux of this discussion needs to be the understanding that IB is a curriculum that is connected across disciplines, while AP is a standard applied primarily to individual courses. Many of our students enroll in one or two AP courses that operate very much independently of one another. In the IB diploma program, students take college level courses across disciplines. In addition, there is an interconnecting element - a course called "Theory of Knowledge" - which ties all courses together. The IB diploma program also requires a kind of service learning component, a culminating extended essay project, and external review of both formative and summative assessments. While students can take IB courses independently, IB requires schools to offer the diploma program if they offer IB. They discourage the kind of menu of offerings taken independently that is a staple of AP programs. Simply, in many ways the strength of IB is in the completeness of the program.

In our analysis of AP and IB, we came to some conclusions. The things that separated IB from AP were also things that are consistent with model schools across the country. We concluded that those things were: external review, cross-curricular connections, an emphasis on application of concepts, culminating projects, and service learning opportunities that connected students to the larger community. Those things coupled with the global relevance of the IB curriculum make it a truly exceptional high school program.

Despite our conclusions that IB is a great program, we are also cognizant of the fact that Grosse Pointe has outstanding AP programs, and that AP is a rigorous, relevant curriculum. Our AP offerings are among the most comprehensive anywhere, the results are phenomenal, and our students earn college credit through these courses. Teachers have invested their professional expertise and time into creating excellent, rigorous AP courses, and the district has invested heavily in the professional development to support these courses. Our investigation into districts that combine AP and IB courses revealed that in most cases it is a kind of "name-branding", and the courses are really IB courses from which some students take the AP exam. There are some divergent philosophies inherent in the assessments of these two curricula.

The high school administrations have concluded that there is another, viable option: take the elements of IB that we like and that distinguish IB from AP, and apply them to our AP program. For example: Offer the AP International Diploma which requires students take courses and exams from several different academic areas, connect those courses with a unifying course similar to Theory of Knowledge, require a culminating project, partner with universities and area businesses for external review purposes, and offer a diploma that reflects a unified program. The benefit of this kind of plan is that we can capitalize on the strengths and investment in our existing program, and strengthen it with the elements that make IB such a distinguished curriculum.

While we ultimately believe that much about an IB diploma program is better than our current AP delivery system, the implementation of an international AP program is the kind of alternative that may give us the best of both IB and AP curricula. We'll continue to discuss the options and the benefits of each possibility with our teachers and with other school districts. We're interested in your thoughts regarding a possible AP International program as an alternative for our students. Please feel free to respond to this post with comments or ideas.